


The Results Are Flawed, But So's the System

by viklikesfic (v_angelique)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - BDSM, Fluff, Gen, Recovery, smol angry Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 11:37:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12556560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/v_angelique/pseuds/viklikesfic
Summary: I was thinking about how BDSM AU world-building often involves some sort of determination of how folks get classified as doms/subs/switches, and couldn't let go of this idea of smol angry Steve Rogers being terribly bent out of shape about the injustice of such a system. So here's a team dinner featuring righteous!Steve, amused!tolerant!Bucky, and edible projectiles.





	The Results Are Flawed, But So's the System

“Wonder twins! How was the hearing?”

Steve scoffs dramatically as they step out of the elevator and towards the big communal table where Banner’s dishing out spinach lasagne to the assembled team. 

“It was fine,” Bucky answers Stark’s question, a gentle hand squeezing Steve’s elbow, but the man is clearly too riled up to be dissuaded, and it almost makes Bucky smile. The first memories that started filtering back, after he broke with HYDRA and gave himself up to enter recovery with what was left of SHIELD’s trauma unit, were often of Steve’s pigheaded righteousness, constantly het up about some cause or another. Women’s rights, socialism, the civil war in Spain… sometimes he misses the small and angry version of his best friend, a version that only comes through hazy and fragmented in memory at the best of times, but if he can’t have the Brooklyn boy that the old James Barnes knew, at least he still has this one, twice as beefy but no less passionate when he’s glommed onto a cause of the week.

“Fine by whose definition, I don’t know,” Steve grumbles as he comes up to the table and accepts a heavily-laden plate from Banner. Bucky slips in next to Sam Wilson and waits for Banner to dish up another supersoldier-sized portion of pasta for him. “They’re insisting on a re-test before he’s cleared.” 

“And, like I told you, that seems like a pretty minor barrier to getting a guy like me’s record cleared, so I’m voting for celebration,” Bucky points out. “Isn’t it SOP?”

“The McArthur test? Yeah,” Clint agrees. Unlike the rest of them sitting or standing around the table, he’s perched on the kitchen island, legs tucked up criss-cross, plate in his lap. “I had to do it before I got cleared after Loki. And when SHIELD first took me.”

“Same,” Natasha volunteers. “Didn’t they give it to you when you came up out of the ice, Steve?”

“Yeah, well, they did a lot of things to me when I came up out of the ice that I wouldn’t give the okay for now,” Steve grumbles. Bucky can’t help but smile around his first mouthful of pasta and cheese. “Doesn’t mean it makes sense. What the hell does McArthur ranking have to do with your fitness as an agent?”

“Nothing directly. But it’s information,” Natasha points out. “All information is valuable, or our files would be a lot thinner.” 

“If it’s really bothering you that much, Spangles, I could hack into SHIELD’s system and doctor the ranking as it’s being calculated,” Stark offers.

“No, it’s not that, though. It’s not the rank itself, it’s the test. It’s personal, and it’s not like Buck’s… throwing himself out on the town, or something.” Bucky smirks, and Natasha catches his eye with a knowing half-smile in return. “You’d think they’ve forced him to talk about enough intimate details in the last seven months of therapy.”

“They have,” Bucky agrees. “And by comparison, this isn’t actually that bad. I don’t remember the test, but… so I have to answer a bunch of questions about whether I’d like to tie people up and watch some porn while hooked up to biofeedback. Hardly as bad as being asked if I feel remorse for torturing a man while his family watched, and then realizing I don’t even remember the specific mission they’re asking me about.”

Steve’s expression clouds over, and Bucky feels the tiniest bit of guilt for reminding him, but Sam quickly interjects, neatly sliding the conversation half a step to the left as he’s so adept at doing. “The questions aren’t actually as direct as what you like to do in bed. And the stimulus analysis isn’t porn, it’s more subtle than that. I had to re-test with the VA when I came back… it wasn’t so bad. And Steve, they do actually modify the test if the subject has experienced major trauma. It should be more help than harm.” 

“ _ May _ be.” Steve butters a hunk of bread with more force than strictly necessary. “But help is relative. I mean, am I only the one who thinks McArthur rankings are kind of a crock of shit anyway?”

“Language, Cap,” Stark grins, eyes twinkling. He gets a small chunk of bread chucked at him for his troubles, which he catches unflinchingly in his mouth. 

“What’s your beef with the rankings, Steve?” Banner asks, tone as gentle as Sam’s and body language as open. The two of them are probably the best at guiding Steve’s righteous energy to fizzle out when he’s on a tear, and Bucky’s grateful. He doesn’t always have the patience or the skill for it, these days. But about this, he’s actually kind of interested.

“They’re not even that  _ useful _ . I mean, sure, you get the basic idea, does somebody sub, do they dom, but the questions only put everyone in a box based on what they ask, and then we make assumptions based on ranking. I know I do it. We all do, but it’s hard to avoid it when we make ranking mandatory and act like re-testing is some sort of holy grail for self-knowledge and recovery in situations like Bucky’s.”

“It’s a fair argument,” Natasha offers. “It’s definitely possible to hack the test.” Her smile is mild and unassuming, but Stark laughs out loud and reaches across the table to hi-five her. She’s a 0-0, by rumor at least, and Bucky doesn’t believe that for half a second. Sure, true neutrals exist, but Natalia? Well… if it’s real, that’d actually be an even bigger con for her than gaming the numbers.

“Yeah, exactly,” Steve continues. “And even if you’re genuine going in, the methods are only focused on certain parts of dominance and submission. Like… it measures how driven you are by each of those things, how important each is to you, how big a part of your identity each is, and it measures how sensitive you are to dominant or submissive stimulus, but it doesn’t actually tell you anything about how intense your desires are when you  _ are _ in a scene, or what you like to do. They package it as this big tool for self-understanding, everyone buys all those self-help books once they know what they are, but then you’re going to feel like a total weirdo if you’re, say, a 3-0, and then you have a scene with a low-ranking submissive and you’re into really heavy kink stuff and you freak them out.”

“Speaking from personal experience?” Stark teases, and Steve just rolls his eyes. Well, one thing Bucky remembers at least, Steve’s not a 3-0. 

“So what if I am? I’m not ashamed to say that my ranking doesn’t define me. I think the rankings just… encourage people not to actually talk about what they like. Or to come on too strong, maybe, or not strong enough. And it’s a shit tool for re-assimilating your identity, or whatever the point is with Bucky.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Bucky admits, but a little smirk lifts the corner of his mouth as he sips from the bottle of beer at his right. “If I promise to make outraged cardboard signs with you after the test, though, will you let me do it?”

Steve chucks another piece of bread, which Bucky catches with his left hand, this time, and volleys into Stark’s mouth again. 

“Ew. Tastes like metal.”

“That’s what she said!” Clint crows, and Steve finally stuffs his mouth with lasagne in defeat.

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously a lot of handwaving of canon. This would be post Winter Soldier but possibly no Ultron and definitely no Civil War. Plus Avengers Tower lives, cause I said so. 
> 
> I might write more in this verse, so let me know if you find any particular characters of interest. The McArthur ranking Steve hates so much, in case you're wondering, is stated as two numbers on a 0-10 scale, with 10 being "most." The first number is dominance and the second is submission, so a 3-0 means that according to the test you're mildly dominant and not at all submissive.


End file.
